In a runoff election that exceeded turnout expectations, voters picked independent candidate Jenn Pae over Students First! candidate Harish Nandagopal as the next A.S. president by a larger than three to two margin.

With 58 voters abstaining, Pae took in 1,691 votes to Nandagopal’s 1,047.

“I’m proud of the campaign I ran, I’m proud of my slate, and I’m proud of my values,” Nandagopal said at Round Table Pizza, where elections officials announced the results on April 9.

Students First! candidates won all other cabinet positions except for commissioner of athletic affairs.

Nandagopal said that despite his own defeat, this year’s election was a success for his progressive slate in what he called a campus dominated by conservative voters and “spineless liberals.”

Pae said that though she ran independently, she nevertheless received a lot of support in her campaign.

“There is no way I could have done this by myself,” Pae said. “It’s just been a matter of people wanting to help me and supporting me, and without them I wouldn’t have been able to get to this point.”

Pae said she does not foresee problems working with the Students First!-dominated cabinet and believes, as an independent, she will be able to form an effective coalition.

“We’re going to be able to get a lot done,” she said. “I think we’ll be able to work together for the interest of the students and do the best job we can.”

Cat Yapyuco, who successfully ran for Pae’s current position as vice president internal with Students First!, said the candidates on her slate already had experience working with each other, and anticipated no problems.

“We want to make sure that we keep our goals and our jobs in mind,” she said. “I’m sure we can work with [Pae]. I don’t think it’s going to be us versus her.”

The only other race that went into a runoff was at Thurgood Marshall College, where Jane Bugea, with 277 votes, defeated Jose Zamora by just 17 votes to become the college’s second student-at-large. Abstentioins accounteed for 120 votes.

Bugea will join Eric Guico, who secured Marshall’s first at-large position in the general election.

Marshall students turned out in some of the largest numbers for the election, with 18.2 percent voting, second to only Sixth College, with 18.9 percent. Earl Warren College registered the lowest participation, with 11.4 percent voting.

Overall, the runoff election drew 14.3 percent of eligible voters, more than one and a half times the amount initially predicted by Chapman. In the general election, 17.8 percent of students voted.

“I’m pleasantly surprised by the student turnout,” Chapman said, crediting Pae’s and Nandagopal’s campaigning methods and a much shorter ballot than in the general election for the large numbers.

Both candidates and supporters mobilized voters on Library Walk in two days of runoff voting. On April 9, Nandagopal handed out bottled water, bought with supporter donations and labeled with his name, to promote the election.

The candidates said many voters told them they had already voted, unaware that they needed to vote again a second time, in the runoff.

Eleanor Roosevelt College freshman Valentina Martin, who cast her ballot at computers set up on Library Walk, said she did not know of the runoff election before one of the candidates told her.

However, the two days of campaigning were not without contention. Several Students First! slate members became upset with an e-mail sent by current A.S. President Jeremy Paul Gallagher to undisclosed recipients, in which he called on voters to participate and also announced his support for Pae.

“I’m voting for Jenn Pae,” Gallagher stated in the e-mail, urging students to ask him why and including his position, in addition to his name, in the e-mail signature.

In a resolution submitted to the A.S. Council five hours before the results of the runoff were announced, Revelle College senior Ted McCombs and Earl Warren College senior Kevin Shawn Hsu called for Gallagher’s censure.

McCombs successfully ran unopposed on Students First! to become Revelle senior senator-elect and Hsu was the slate’s presidential nominee in 2003, garnering the most votes in his race before being disqualified along with the rest of Students First! candidates.

“We thought that president Gallagher’s actions were highly inappropriate for his office,” McCombs said. “It’s inappropriate for any officer of A.S. to use his or her title to endorse a candidate.”

By analyzing the time stamps and server redirections in the e-mail’s header, Hsu and McCombs say they believe the e-mail may have reached thousands of students, including those on the A.S. listserv.

According to McCombs, Gallagher came within a “hair’s breath” of violating A.S. bylaws that prohibit councilmembers from endorsing national, state and local candidates. McCombs said he did not believe Pae knew of Gallagher’s plan to send the e-mail.

Nandagopal called Gallagher’s actions “unethical” and said he supported the censure, not as a candidate, but as an individual student.

Gallagher, who ran on the Unity slate last year, declined to comment on the issue. However, Warren freshman senator Erik Ward defended the e-mail, arguing that it represented a form of protected speech.

“I don’t think this resolution is a smart idea,” Ward said, explaining that A.S. elections were not covered by the endorsement prohibition. “I did not think it was inappropriate at all. I think that, as the current president, he is allowed to say, ‘I know what the president has to do and think this person is a better fit.’”

Pae, who ran for vice president internal on the Unity slate last year, said she appreciated Gallagher’s support but also understood the position of the resolution’s backers.

However, she said she had not formed an opinion on the issue.

The A.S. internal committee will discuss the resolution, submitted by Marshall junior senator Kate Maull, on April 14 and the council will vote whether to include it as one of the night’s “Items of Immediate Consideration.”